He glanced at us as he passed; but the plague masks served to disguise us, and he was too intent on his business to spare us any closer attention.

His destination was ours. By the time we reached the warehouse which contained the attic Church of Magnus Stepney, Hollingshead and his men were dismounted in front of it. The half-dozen Ecclesiastical Police quickly surrounded the building, blocking every entrance. Lymon and I watched from a safe distance as they performed their evolutions.

There were no fire-fighters nearby—in fact the street was deserted; its residents had long since fled. The street had changed some since my last visit, mainly due to Julian’s lifting of the ban on apostate churches. Just a year ago it had been a furtive neighborhood of hemp-shops and boarding houses and other low businesses. It still was; but newly-established Temples and Mosques and Places of Worship had sprung up among the taverns and slatternly hotels, many of them painted in gaudy colors, or decorated with fanciful symbols and slogans, as if a Carnival of Faith had arrived in town.

The fire-wagons were all down at the Canal itself, behind and to the west of us. The Immigrant District burned freely, and wind-blown embers floated down, but neither the warehouse containing the Church of the Apostles Etc. nor any of the nearby structures was actually burning yet.

“Julian must be inside, as you guessed,” said Lymon Pugh, “or else the Deacon wouldn’t be here. Look how they cover the entrances—very professional, for Dominion men, though any Army patrol would do it better.”

“And they’re well-armed,” I added, for the ecclesiastical troopers carried gleaming Pittsburgh rifles in their hands. “If only we had got here first!”

“No, Adam, you’re wrong about that. If we had got here first we’d be inside with Julian, and subject to the Deacon’s whims. As it stands we have a chance of taking the enemy by surprise.”

“Just the two of us?”

“Calls for stealth,” Lymon Pugh admitted, “but it can be done.”

“I don’t have even a pistol to use against their weapons.”

“Leave that part to me. They divide their forces, Adam, see? Six men plus the Deacon, and he just sent three of them around the back to cover the exits.”

“Even three armed men—”

“Dominion police! Why, I could have brought down a dozen such men even before I joined the Army. Often did.”

Despite what Lymon had told me about his street-fighting and beef-boning days, it struck me as a risky proposition. But he was firm about it. He told me to stay where I was, and soothe the horses, while he circled around back of the warehouse. Once the rear guards were out of action he would commandeer their rifles, and when we were both armed we could assault the front—if I thought it was worth doing. I told him I had come this far, and might as well finish the journey, so long as we had a reasonable chance of escaping death.

He smiled and dashed off into the darkness, keeping to the shadows and circling wide.

The horses were made nervous by the fire across the Canal, and they wanted to whinny and stomp. I tethered them to an alley post, and spent considerable time calming them down. The flames were so high in the sky that they cast a red twilight over everything, and the smoke was so thick that even my plague mask couldn’t keep it out, and it was all I could do to keep from coughing explosively.

Then there was the sound of a gunshot, followed by a second stuttering volley of rifle fire. All my work calming the horses was instantly undone. I looked across the street to the warehouse. The ecclesiastical thugs remaining there took up their weapons and hurried around the side of the building to find out what had happened, leaving the Deacon by himself.

The Deacon didn’t linger, however. He entered the warehouse by the front door, alone, and seeming very determined, and with a pistol gripped tightly in his hand.

Lymon’s plan was not developing as expected, and I was forced to act on my own recognizance. I hurried across the empty street, past overturned trash-barrels and flakes of ash newly-fallen from the sooty sky, and followed Deacon Hollingshead into the building, treading very lightly so he would not be aware of my presence.

It took me a while to make my way up the stairs, for the only illumination was the glare of the fire as it came through the landing windows. At every moment I feared hearing another gunshot, and expected to arrive at the upstairs chapel to find Julian dead at the Deacon’s hands. But no such shot was fired; and when I came to the sign at the top of the stairs—

CHURCH OF THE APOSTLES ETC.

GOD IS CONSCIENCE

—HAVE NO OTHER—

LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOUR BROTHER

I was able to hear the sound of voices.

A few more steps brought me to the door of the large attic room which Magnus used for a chapel, with its benches for parishioners and its high round window under a peaked roof. There were no parishioners inside, however, as I discovered when I put my head around the door. What I saw was Deacon Hollingshead with his back to me, aiming a pistol at Julian Comstock and Magnus Stepney, who sat side-by-side on the nearest bench.

This was about all I could make out, for the only light was from the high window facing the Egyptian district. Everything was bathed in shades of umber, orange, and smoldering red; and this light was not steady, but trembled and wavered and waxed and waned.

I had not yet been seen, and I stopped where I was.

“Of all the crimes you committed,” Hollingshead was saying, “and they’re too numerous to account, the one that ‘brings me here,’ since you ask, is the murder of my daughter.”

Magnus and Julian leaned into one another on their bench. Their faces were shadowed and obscure, and Julian’s voice, when he spoke, was hardly a whisper.

“Then you’re here on a useless mission,” he said. “Whatever else I may have done, I haven’t harmed your daughter in any way.”

The Deacon gave a wild laugh. “Haven’t harmed her! You ordered the attack on Colorado Springs, didn’t you?”

Julian nodded slowly.

“Then you killed her as surely as if you had driven a dagger into her breast! Her house, my house, was demolished by artillery fire. It burned to the ground, Mr. President. No one survived.”

“I’m sorry for the destruction of your property—”

“My property!”

“—and for all the lives that were lost in the attack—pointlessly, I suppose—though history will have the final word on that. The Dominion could have yielded, you know, and all that bloodshed would have been prevented. But as far as your daughter is concerned—your daughter is alive, Deacon Hollingshead.”

The Deacon had probably expected some fumbling denial or perhaps a plea for mercy. But this mild retort took him by surprise. He lowered his pistol a few degrees, and I thought about tackling him and fighting him for it, but the risk seemed too great just now.

“Do you mean something particular by that,” he asked, “or are you completely mad?”

“The story of your daughter’s troubles circulated widely—”

“Thanks in part to that vulgar song your friend’s whorish wife performed at last year’s Independence Day celebrations—”

“And I admit I took an interest in her. I investigated her situation very carefully. Not long before the attack on Colorado Springs I sent two of my Republican Guards to interview her.”

“To interview her! Is this true?”

“My men apprised her of the pending military action and offered her a means of escape.”

Hollingshead took a step closer to his captives. “Lies, no doubt; but I swear to you, Julian Comstock, if in fact you took my daughter as a hostage, tell me where she is—tell me, and I might let you live a while yet.”